“Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life.”
Source: The Principles of Ethics (1897), Part I: The Data of Ethics, Ch. 6, The Biological View
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Herbert Spencer 81
English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent … 1820–1903Related quotes
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" Imitation http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/poe/17481", Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827).
Introduction
An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians (1792)
Context: Yet God repeatedly made known his intention to prevail finally over all the power of the Devil, and to destroy all his works, and set up his own kingdom and interest among men, and extend it as universally as Satan had extended his. It was for this purpose that the Messiah came and died, that God might be just, and the justifier of all that should believe in him. When he had laid down his life, and taken it up again, he sent forth his disciples to preach the good tidings to every creature, and to endeavour by all possible methods to bring over a lost world to God.
Source: On having a pessimistic nature in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘So much of life is pain and sorrow and wilful ignorance’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/12/jesmyn-ward-sing-unburied-sing-interview-meet-author in The Guardian (2017 Nov 12)
"Richard Wright's Blues" (1945), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 133.